@crocordile replied to your post â@regnantâ reblogged your post âHello, do you think Robert loved Tommem...â
Yes, yes, yes, yes, there are so many Roberts in my life that I forget the idea of genuine loving someone in an extremely selfish and egocentric way that often causes more harm than good is not universally understood by everyone... Robert is an ass and he messed up the lives of people he dearly loved terribly (and fatally), but he did love them in his way :S
(idk if egocentric in English works as I think it does, like in Portuguese ; I mean to say like, unable or unwilling to consider someone else's perspective)
In English I think weâd use âself-centeredâ -- which means the same thing, literally even, but the connotation is just a tiny bit different? Egocentric gets more of the connotation of egotist, holding oneself to be better than everybody else, whereas someone whoâs self-centered doesnât necessarily think theyâre better, they just never think about how the things they do affect anyone else. But this may vary, Iâd imagine psychologists and such would be more likely to use the Latin than regular people do.
Anyway, yeah, I donât have many Roberts that Iâm close to, but I know people who do. His type is not uncommon, someone who cares and has strong emotions and makes decisions based on those emotions (or doesnât actually make decisions, just reacts), in a non-empathetic way or carelessly unthinking of the consequences. Not doing things deliberately to spite others, but not aware that what theyâre doing is spiting others. Like, Robert didnât say Lyannaâs name in bed to spite Cersei, he did it because he was drunk and stupid and lost in might-have-beens. He didnât think about bringing Mya to court in order to spite Cersei and her children, it was because Joffrey was a disturbed child who was so unlike Robert and that bothered him in ways he couldnât explain, and he wanted his happy loving black-haired baby girl, and didnât think that âoh wait, promoting my bastard at court would reflect badly on my wife and legitimate childrenâ until Cersei made her threat. (If Robert really wanted to spite Cersei heâdâve gone through with it despite the death threat, which does make for an interesting AU.) He didnât even sleep with Delena Florent to spite Stannis, it was because he was drunk and horny and oh hey hereâs a bed.
Like, Robert and Aerys are both ESFPs, probably, but the difference was that Aerys did deliberately act out of spite, viciously. (As well as being severely mentally ill, with a personality disorder evident in his youth that eventually bloomed into full paranoia and psychosis.) Which isnât to say that the things Robert did were defensible, in any way, but they are understandable, at least. And certainly by the end of Robertâs relationship with Cersei they had broken down so far that he was deliberately doing things to spite her, but more often than not he still just wasnât thinking about other people when he did things. Robert acts self-centeredly and thoughtlessly and carelessly and drunkenly and abusively, but usually not intending to be vicious or spiteful... which makes it sadder, honestly.
@danainthedogpark replied:
Nuance? In my ASOIAF? Itâs more likely than you think.
